Lynn Smith Coterie

Group Show Danks Street Gallery Head On Photo Festival 2016

With hundreds of millions of photographic devices in people’s pockets 24/7 it is not unreasonable to suggest that everything and everyone everywhere are being depicted. Photographers looking for their own space within this ever-flowing tsunami of images need to stand back and take a contrary view. If everything is being depicted, why depict? Why not infer, imply, suggest? Why offer something complete if people only spend two or three seconds looking at Facebook or instagram, or minutes checking out photographs in a gallery? Photographs that hint at what may have just left the frame, or what might be about to enter it, will rekindle viewer engagement. No longer will images just be quick grabs on social media. Incomplete pictures make the viewer stop, and ponder. Their 'completion' can happen, but only in the viewer’s mind. And that’s why this kind of image making is interesting. Because each viewer will 'complete' the picture in their own way, adding elements that they themselves extrapolate. A pessimistic view is that the current social media invasion of our lives is leading to the death of contemplation. But if photographers stop 'telling the story' a new viewer can be attracted, one who does not want to be 'told' and who is willing to engage with the playfulness our photographs exude.